Life is full of challenges! Everyone goes through them, irrespective of your gender, race, age, social status, etc. I have experienced a lot of them, most of which are recounted in this book. Each page is filled with beautiful little narratives of my experience and those of others.
Stories of how life’s challenges were overcome. It covers love and relationships, family, parenthood, health, grief, career, religion, etc. There are 24 chapters on various topics. You will definitely find one that addresses your situation. My goal is to give my readers the courage to do whatever it takes to deal with some of life’s challenges.
I promise it will make you laugh too. You will find answers and some perspective on whatever you are going through or just be simply inspired.
Excerpt from the book
Grief is a terrible experience that almost everyone has gone through or felt. Consoling a bereaved person who has just lost a loved one is something we all have to do sometime in our lives. Knowing what to do or say to make them feel better is always a challenge and could be a very awkward situation because you want to say the right things, do the right things to cheer them up somehow.
So, what is the right thing to say? What is the right thing to do?
I was watching a drama on TV last week where a father lost his teenage daughter and a boy, his twin sister. It was interesting to see the way they reacted to being consoled by their friends and family. The “father” did not want to be hugged or spoken to. A neighbour who lost her child too said I know how you feel, he did not like that as he felt no one could possibly know the pain of his grief and breaking heart. I am guilty of this too. I said those same words to someone recently when I went to console a friend of mine who lost her mum. I said I know how you feel because I lost my mum too. But is this really true? When you consider that people grieve differently and each individual’s reactions, thoughts and feelings to tragedy are going to be unique. I also think the depth of one’s pain or grief is largely dependent on the type of relationship with the deceased. The pain is more if you had a close relationship or are an adult when it happened. Therefore, my feelings of losing my mum at the age of 9 must be different from that of an adult who lost her mum in her 30s and who had a close relationship with her too to boot.
Anyway, I digress. Another friend of the father said going to church really helped her through her grief. “You should try it”, she said. He got even more annoyed because he wasn’t a Christian, so expected her to know better than to suggest that to him. We Christians or other religious people always encourage people who are bereaved to pray and turn to God for comfort, we forget to ask about their faith or consider their religious background.
The lady felt so uncomfortable and awkward that she disappeared into the kitchen to make a cup of tea for everyone. A few friends and neighbours said they did not want to visit because they weren’t sure what to say or do to console them. When they finally did, they said sorry for your loss and disappeared into the kitchen to make tea too, which of course no one drank because the bereaved was too grief-stricken or too sad to bother with tea. What exactly is the deal with this issue of making tea? Must be a European thing. Just imagine the amount of tea, sugar and milk wasted at a time like this. The teenage boy who lost his sister kept being asked how he was? What a silly question to ask! How else is he supposed to be feeling? He didn’t bother to answer this question and just said thanks. One of his friends just sat with him in silence and held his hand, wept with him when he became overwhelmed with grief, hugged him when she felt he needed it. This was exactly what he needed. Later he said thanks for not asking me how I am and just being here.
Anyone surprised about this? It makes perfect sense to me because you already know they are grief-stricken and cannot tell you how much it hurts. So why ask them to articulate it? At this time, silence is best. The legendary Mahatma Gandhi put it nicely when he said;
“Speak, only if it improves upon the silence”
– Mahatma Gandhi.
People grieve in different ways and need their friends and family to be there for them at that time. I believe what they need most is empathy. We should try to empathise, which according to the Cambridge dictionary is “to be able to understand how someone else feels”. I know it may be impossible to be fully empathetic because each individual’s reactions, thoughts and feelings to tragedy are going to be unique, yet it is still a much more active process because we have all experienced bereavement and so can understand the situation.
So let’s all draw from our past experience of bereavement and loss to empathise with our friends and family at a time like this. Then we just may understand and know the right thing to say or do. I hope my book has helped you in some way to understand how to tackle the awkward situation of consoling the bereaved.
Reviews
Elizabeth Omatsola
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very insightful and easy to relate to
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 October 2017
Verified Purchase
Simple narrative of how to deal and overcome life’s challenges. Very insightful and easy to relate to. Value for money and a must have in every home.
Abie Igbinigie
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 February 2018
Verified Purchase
I enjoyed every page, I didn’t want to stop reading. Great book!
Ingrid H.
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is a very useful guide on how to deal with a challenging situation …
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 March 2017
This is a very useful guide on how to deal with a challenging situation a person might be in – or find oneself in tomorrow. The author shares in a personal and a funny way her experiences. The chapters are short, simple – but effective in showing ways of how to get out of a challenging situation sane, empowered and without a damage.
Other books of this genre I read were dedicated to a single topic. This one is quite complex with regard to topics covered. This book will make you re-discover values and principles which faded along your life journey. After reading this book you will feel that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars
A very useful and encouraging book on how to deal with life …
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 March 2017
A very useful and encouraging book on how to deal with life challenges and issues that people face on a daily basis. The book contains the author’s personal experiences and how she overcame them. A good book for every library. (MI).
Festus A Jerumeh
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is encouraging words and inspiration. that help …
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 October 2017
This book is encouraging words and inspiration.that help my momentum to pull myself out of the doldrums and re frame my thoughts. As I replace negative thoughts with inspiring words and ideas, I find my feelings often follow by the book a lot has learn after reading it.
